The sensation of blood sliding across skin felt like being caressed.
On the fifteenth floor of the Silent Spiral, Gwen raised her head, watching Igola's blood trickle down her arm. A strange thought suddenly crossed her mind—so his blood was warm, too.
Yet this was no good sign.
Igola was already grievously injured, not even out of critical danger yet. The concentrated barrage from the Black Feather Guard had shredded most of his internal organs; several ribs were fractured, and one broken bone had pierced a lung lobe. Had he not received timely treatment, he would likely have set foot in Hell by now.
Even so, he was still suffering from massive blood loss and other severe debuffs. The healing from the Water Therapy sorcery spirit was built upon consuming vitality; after such horrific injuries, Igola had lost at least several years of his lifespan and exhausted all the stored vitality in his cells. Under normal circumstances, he should have immediately fallen into a deep slumber to recuperate.
Just like Yaxiu back at Shattered Lake Prison—every time his body was battered into ruin, he would sleep soundly in the healer's bed before waking up.
The Swindler was only able to remain conscious now because he was using mind arts to deceive his own body. Even if he were to pass out the very next second, his body would have done more than its fair duty by him.
Yet to pull Gwen up, Igola was forced to wring out the very last ember of energy in his frame. The wounds that had just stopped bleeding burst open again, and his newly healed muscles tore anew. Like a battered, tattered doll, he was losing stuffing once more.
*Drip.*
A drop of blood ran along the back of his hand, slid past his knuckles, and dripped onto Gwen's face. It was the first drop, but certainly not the last.
Before long, Igola's right arm was drenched in scarlet, every wound along his arm and shoulder ripping wide open. Though Gwen couldn't see them, the wounds on the other parts he was straining—such as his left arm, chest, and waist—had undoubtedly torn open as well.
Gwen looked quietly at Igola's bleeding right hand without saying a word. Igola still gripped her arm with a deathly hold, his fingernails nearly sinking into her flesh, and remained silent as well.
Suddenly, Gwen drew the dagger at her waist. It was a gift Yaxiu had given them, custom-made in Black Robe Town, with a walnut handle and a black steel blade engraved with a gleaming golden "Gwen." No family name, just her given name. Gwen cherished this gift dearly and usually couldn't bear to use it.
Yet now, her hand trembling, she summoned a sorcery spirit and first sliced away her already ragged trousers, exposing her smooth, taut thighs. Then, immediately after—
"What are you doing?"
"Losing weight," Gwen explained concisely.
"Pointless," Igola said calmly. "If it were just a matter of weight, you could unfold your void wings and fly up yourself. But not only can you not resist the downward drag, even with all my strength I haven't been able to haul you up an inch. It's clear that what we're fighting isn't natural gravity at all, but a miracle that overrides reality."
"It's not pointless," she said softly. "At least you won't have to pull me so hard."
"If I need you to do something, I'll say so," Igola said coldly. "Don't be so full of yourself. If you've got nothing to do, focus your senses and tell me what abnormal sensations you're feeling right now."
Gwen closed her eyes and thought for a moment, then said, "I feel like I'm inside a waterfall. Endless, rushing currents are washing over me... and the streams are unimaginably fine, so fine they feel like they're passing right through my body..."
"I... I feel like a drop of water within a torrent."
Igola went silent for a moment, then asked abruptly, "You have a Water Therapy sorcery spirit. Check your body to see if there are any changes."
Gwen summoned her Water Therapy sorcery spirit, utilizing the water currents to inspect her interior. After a moment, she slowly shook her head, her voice slightly dry. "I didn't find anything wrong."
Igola watched her for a long while before lowering his eyelids. "Good, then."
Yet Gwen started talking, opening the conversational floodgates. "Mr. Igola, there's a joke I've been wanting to tell you all for a long time, but I could never find the chance. I'm not like Mr. Yaxiu; I could never slip into a conversation so naturally."
Igola said, "Well, of course. His idiocy has reached a state of effortless, second-nature perfection."
"As you know, the nights in Senluo have only the Strangling Green. There's no moon, and no stars," Gwen said. "Yet I'm a star sorcerer. Isn't that funny?"
A trickle of blood leaked from the corner of the Swindler's mouth, a clear sign that his damaged internal organs had ruptured, causing internal bleeding. Yet the corner of his lips curled upward. "You really don't have any talent for telling jokes."
"I only learned about stars from books," Gwen said. "They appear at night, twinkling to illuminate the earth, so even night isn't completely dark. They form all kinds of patterns and rivers of light, making the starry sky far more beautiful than the daytime. There's even that miraculous occurrence called a shooting star, where making a wish upon one makes your dream come true..."
"I almost envy that you can still harbor such unrealistic fantasies at your age, though the last one is practically an unfounded urban legend," Igola remarked. "You'll be disappointed."
"I won't," Gwen said. "Even if there were only a single star in the night sky, I'd be content. When I was little, I always felt that the night was so dark, yet so vast, that it was overwhelmingly lonely. If there were just one star shining in the dark, it wouldn't feel quite so desolate.
"There must be many people like me, gazing up alone at the pitch-black sky at night. If there were a star keeping us company, we'd at least have one friend.
"I thought about that every night, and before I knew it, I summoned a starlight sorcery spirit." Gwen turned her head toward the blue-glowing sorcery spirit on her shoulder. "I've always believed I couldn't be the only star sorcerer. There must be many people like me, looking out at the empty night with their eyes while imagining bright, twinkling stars in their hearts."
Igola suddenly coughed sharply twice, clamping his mouth shut and swallowing hard against his throat. His voice came out raspy: "Polish it up and tell them this joke next time. I guarantee Yaxiu and Chikala will at least chuckle."
Gwen looked at him blankly and said softly, "Don't swallow it back down. If you need to spit it out, just spit."
Igola replied, "I just think coughing up blood looks unseemly."
Gwen shook her head and let out a long breath. "Actually, I lied to you just now. I do feel some changes in my body. While that invisible torrent washes over me, it's also constantly corroding me. Even though I haven't changed yet, once it crosses a certain threshold, I'll probably break down."
She lowered her voice. "Just like how water dissolves into water."
"Yeah, I figured."
"You figured?"
"Who do you think you are, and who do you think I am?" Igola retorted coldly. "I'm a swindler. Half an hour is all I need to figure out someone's character, and you've been around me for over a month. Did you really think you had any secrets left in front of me?"
Chapter 732